So I have a new best friend in Haiti, and his name is Juste.
Pronounced: Juic-T
He is truly living what we in America have somewhat forgotten about: The American Dream
He is an electrician, and is currently in University to learn Civil Engineering. He is 21 years old.
He finished high school (secondary school) and went to trade school for 3 years. Now he wants a higher paying degree and so he is in school in Port-au-Prince. He is paying his way thru by working for his dad (also an engineer).
He wants so badly to achieve the best he can. He knows 4 languages fluently. Me and him talk about Kanye West, The American Prison system, and all the movies and cultural items you can imagine.
He wants sooooo bad to go to the US!
But he is Haitian. And that means he can't get a visa without substantial help from many many people.
There is something wrong when a well-to-do kid from a poor country can't even pay for a visit to "paradise". I want to help him so bad. But there is very little I can do besides ask for letters of recommendation.
If anyone could figure out a way to get him into school in the States that would be best...he's brilliant! He makes me look like a dumbass. And he wants to return to help his home: Haiti.
Today was an absolutely wonderful day.
I met up with a friend of mine, Angela Galbreath, from Sewanee who works for the Episcopal diocese of Haiti in Port-Au-Prince. We went to mass at the cathedral (where I got to meet Bishop Durrison), ate a delicious steak lunch, saw some sites including the local Episcopal university (where I got to see Dixon and Annwn's old van!...see photo below), and went to a the St. Vincent House, a house for the blind, deaf, and disabled. There I met a Haitian man named Ronnie who is bound to a wheel chair (chez roulette) who we somehow had a shared friend (Seth Olsen). We talked about basketball (Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James) and we taught each other english and Creole respectively. After our visit to St. Vincent, I was able to meet a true life "Rastafarian for life, that's da truf man", Bombo, who is a friend of Angela's.
The whole day ended over a few Prestiges (Haitian beer) at the rectory of St. Simeons where I learned dirty Creole slang from some of the teenagers.
Me with Dixon's old Minivan...certainly a small world
Seeing Port-au-Prince reassured me that there is indeed some hope for Haiti. They might be 154 out of 174 on the UN's Human Development Index, but there are very many people who care very deeply about their country and want to change it. And even more, I am beginning to realize that perhaps the biggest foe of this wonderful nation is its biggest supporter, the US. They might give them billions in aid, but they also control all of the politics. If they don't want a person in power, they physically remove him (Aristide was removed from his office at Parliament physically by US Marines and put on a plane to Panama all in one afternoon).
Some believe that the US wants to control the nation because there are untapped reserves of gold or oil. I don't know if I believe that, but something seems very fishy about the way the US has so many hands in this country's politics. They won't allow for dual citizenship (thus not allowing highly educated, wealthy Haitians on the Diaspora to vote or pay taxes). They won't issue travel visas to Haitians to travel ANYWHERE (including the Dominican Republic) unless they have extensive letters of recommendation.
America has crippled this nation. They control everything about it. And they say that they help by sending millions of dollars in USAid (which you see their tents everywhere), installing UN police (highly funded by the US), and the thousands of NGO workers who are trying desperately to improve the health, education, and livelihoods of million of people. And yet, ask any Haitian or outsider and they will all say that Haiti is worse off now than 20 years ago.
Why?
We have paralyzed them. And instead of trying to rehabilitate their injury, we have essentially led them to believe ever more that they are a victim...a victim of God's wrath, a victim of dictators who had malintentions, a victim of a colonial system which was doomed to fail centuries ago.
The Haitian people want to stand up. And there are many who are trying. Pere Val and Carmel are trying to stand. And they need help. And these many mission teams from Virginia, NC, SC, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee are helping them achieve this. But they need more. They need people to support their struggling economy. All Americans need to make Haiti a tourist destination. All Americans need to buy haitian products. American companies need to be bold and place factories here. A polarized government that can't even effectively run its own country certainly can't run a failing state like Haiti. We, free Americans, need to circumvent our government's failed attempts and help Haiti, through the ever-powerful dollar and the ever-loving God.
Last night I returned to civilization. And by civilization I
mean access to internet, but most importantly, a shower (still not hot),
running water, and flushing toilets. Croix-Des-Bouquets (aka Kwade Bouke) is a nice, wealthy town when you’ve been in the bush for five days.
I was lucky enough to travel to a small village tucked away
in the Haitian mountains known as Crochu. Although there is very little which
makes it appear as a town (or even a hamlet), it has an astonishing 8,000
residents. Many of these people live at least 2 hours walk from the “center of
town” yet still consider themselves residents.
Crochu is the most extreme poverty I have ever seen. These
people have attempted to maintain a lifestyle on the side of steep
mountainsides which have been so eroded, deforested, and drained of life that
they are truly nothing but rocks. And yet, they manage to eek out an existence,
subsisting on millet, corn, and the few avocado and mango trees which haven’t
been cut down.
“The market” is quite a site to see, with only about 10
shacks (which also serve as sleeping quarters at night) which sell old bottles of rum, 7up, and candy, as well as whatever excess crop might be available. And
a cock fighting house. In the five days I spent there, I think that my group’s
purchase of two pints of rum might have been the biggest of the entire week
($10 American total).
The past five days were perhaps some of the best I have ever
had. Beginning Saturday morning, I fell in with a group of five gentlemen from
Edenton, North Carolina in the eastern part of the state on the Aberlmarle
Sound. They were from St. Paul's Episcopal Church.
There were the Austin brothers (Tom and Jerry…yes, like the
cartoon), who were both extreme libertarians in their 60’s. I thoroughly
enjoyed getting to know them and their political views. I was far too liberal
and naïve for their taste. This inspired healthy debates over a bottle of rum
two nights.
There was Will, the youngest in the group at probably 40,
who works with GIS for the local energy company.
There was Scottie, a man in his 50’s who runs the local
marina.
And there was Hood Ellis, one of the main lawyers in town
who was quite the good-ole-boy and yet he reminded me a great deal of my own
father.
Their work was to roof a school at St. Alban’s Episcopal
Church in Crochu, which is the sister church of their church. Over
three full days of work, with the help of many Haitians, we completely roofed a
new 7-room school building.
These men are on their way to the airport this morning to
head back home. And yet, having known them for only 5 days, I felt like we were
able to share a deep bond. I can now proudly say I have friends (even if they
are over twice my age) in Edenton, NC. We were truly brothers in Christ,
joining hands in work and prayer for a common good. We shared stories from
college, from hunting trips and from families. We shared ideas for how to help
Haiti. And we shared in witness to the extreme conditions these people are
forced to live.
And like the dogs I mentioned in an earlier post, it has come to my
realization ever-more every day that all humans are still very much the same.
We might have different political views. We might live in large houses
overlooking the ocean or tiny “ti-kays” made of mud and tin. We might be
lawyers, carpenters, telecommunication consultants, or naïve students. But we
all still need clean water. We all still need shelter. We all still need love.
We all still need joy and laughter. We all play cards and dominos. All kids
will fight over new toys and beg for candy. And all men can share a laugh when
the old white guy misses a nail (klou) with his hammer (motto) three straight
times. We are all brothers from different mothers, and yet all still from the
same Father.
The View of "Downtown" Crochu from the roof of St. Alban's Church.
On a side note:
The Daily Lesson for Ash Wednesday was Matthew 6: 1-6.
Something in this spoke to me a great deal regarding my time in Haiti.
“So
whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do
in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may be praised by others.”
I feel that, even though I do not
have Facebook, the continuation of this blog might be perhaps “trumpeting” my
alms. I will continue to journal for myself but I do not want what I am seeing
and experiencing in Haiti to be any sort of cross I hold above others. I
decided to venture down here to learn more about myself and learn about the
world around me. I think it is perhaps best if I continue to do so without
sounding my adventures to the outside world.
Haiti has already reaffirmed my faith in one of my previously held beliefs:
Dogs domesticated themselves.
Haiti might be full of wandering goats, cattle, roosters, and such but it is also full of dogs. And these aren't German shorthairs, poodles, or spaniels. They aren't even the Heinz 57 variety. They are truly just...dogs.
And yet, they are the exact same here as they are in America as they are in Belgium.
The Valdemas have 5 dogs residing in the compound: one looks like a mangy Chow, another like a large terrier, another...well dog, and two others which look like they must have had a German Shepard great-grandfather. One of them has one ear flipped up all the time: I have decided to name in Scooby.
And the routine is the same:
Pere Val wakes up and goes outside at 7am (sound familiar dad?) and feeds them and they bark and howl and get all rilled up...and then silence as they feast.
During the day when they get bored chasing each other around the yard, they start barking at the neighboring dogs to start up a conversation.
And like all other dogs, they greet you as you come in through the front gate and get out of the car, tails wagging.
And like all other dogs, they sit in the kitchen, waiting for any scraps to fall.
But perhaps the most striking shared traits amongst all canine are these:
Their tail always wags
They always carry a slight smile (even if they are drinking water from the street which is likely full of sewage and cholera)
And they are all lazy as hell— Sure Haiti might be hot, but dogs wander around the courtyard of the church and collapse as if shot out of sheer exhaustion. Their trek across the yard as obviously been too laborious.
So dogs domesticated themselves 8,000 years ago. Seems unlikely but plausible.
Or perhaps this:
God truly designed one species of creature to be in a symbiotic relationship with us.
We are the clown fish and they are the anemones. We feed them, clean them (in some countries), play with them. And they give us loyalty, affection, protection, and companionship.
What more could man have asked for?
"Its like I'm either 98% excited and 2% scared....or maybe it's 98% scared and 2% excited. But that's what makes it so intense!"- Owen Wilson in the greatest movie of all time, Armageddon.
Well, I
ship out tomorrow, at 6am. My entire life for the next 3+ months somehow fits
in a large duffel bag and my backpack. I’m looking forward to the simplicity I
think I will find, with no Twitter, text messages, or telephone. But the reality of this big step has begun to settle in. It
almost feels like I am stepping into a dream. Or perhaps I am waking up out of
one. Either way, it will all seem far more real when I step off the plane
tomorrow and enter the heat and humidity of Haiti.
And while
my life in Haiti has not quite begun, I have already had a calendar of events
and plans begin to take shape. While I will not be able to make a Carnival
celebration this Sunday with Angela Galbreath, I will hopefully be making a
jaunt to the little town of Croche, a tiny village accessible only by foot, with
a mission team coming in this weekend. I have also set up plans to meet up with
Sewanee professor, Dr. McGrath, in March in Cange as she and some students work
on an environmental project with Partners in Health. Hopefully I will be able
to add something to the mix. And also in March, my dad and his mission team
will come down.
I am
certainly ready to get out of Little Rock. Somewhere between a dusting of snow
(which managed to shut down the town for a morning), my first ever car accident
(when I was rear ended…my Subaru won), and the extreme boredom which has seen
me read two books in the past week, I know that my time has come. I am being beckoned
south. As for tonight, one last supper with my family and hopefully a good
night’s sleep in a bed without a mosquito net.
I guess I
can officially claim today as the first true day of the beginning of my long
adventure south to Haiti. Sure I have already begun part of the voyage, moving
from North Carolina, saying farewell to old friends, receiving a slew of
vaccinations (some of which wrecked havoc on my intestines). But today is
really when it starts: I have begun packing.
The thing I
am currently most worried about is medical concerns. I guess it makes sense
that I have always been a slight hypochondriac seeing as I am the child of two
doctors, but I have been having nightmares of the cholera outbreak which is
currently ravaging the impoverished areas of Haiti. I am confident that I will
have clean sources of water and food and that I will stay in relatively good
health, but there is still a deep, subconscious fear of something bad
happening, thus producing these nightmares (and I haven’t even started on the
malaria medicine yet!).
So, the
first part of the packing process is packing and planning my medicine. Sipro
(an antibiotic), Malarone (my daily malaria medicine), immodium, pebto bismol,
Tylenol, ibuprofen, Lisinopril (my high blood pressure medicine), and
vitamins…not to mention all my toiletries. Hopefully I will stay healthy but
the Eagle Scout in me always tells me to “Be Prepared.” There are other things
to pack, mostly clothes. Luckily I am moving to the tropics where it will be so
hot that I do not have to pack anything very heavy. I am also packing a stack
of books to entertain myself for the great deal of time I will have removed
from social media, internet, and television.
I depart in six days. A 6:30am
flight will take me to DFW the to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and then down to
Port-Au-Prince where I will be picked up by my host-family, the Valdemas. I am
very excited by the uncertainty which certainly lies ahead. I have no true idea
of what my living conditions will be like, what I will be doing, or who I will
meet. I only know that I will indeed be fed, have a roof over my head, and have
at least some access to the internet to keep in touch with friends and family
back home.
My whole life I have had a plan,
known exactly where I was going, when I would get there, and what I would do
along the way. But today, I am throwing the notion of plans and long-term goals
out the window with the intention of living deliberately in the present.
